Chapter Seventeen
Joy Li’s on Grant Street was Eleanor’s favorite place to lunch casually, its Americanized Chinese food a guilty pleasure. She felt a strange joy for cellophane-wrapped fortune cookies and for red paper lanterns suspended above like in a backyard garden, for wooden chopsticks and the row of Lucky Cats which waved from the window, all identical to the one Marianne posed and painted in her art studio.
On weekends when Eleanor didn’t have any particular plans, and on occasional weekdays, she would go there alone to eat; or else with Brandon. It was a spot of comfort, a place for the spilling of personal grievances and workplace stories.
They usually shared a small booth near the windows or a still-smaller one near the dim but cozy rear corner, where grey walls wrapped around the red vinyl seats and white-topped tables were marked with a dragon symbol. It was here that Eleanor found herself across from him at lunchtime on a Saturday.
Brandon had phoned that morning. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she answered, honestly. His abrupt tone was not an affront to her, since she was used to his brusque manner of asking questions by now. Waste no time, reach the swift answer in journalistic fashion.
“Then let’s go to lunch. I’ll drive.” A half-hour later, they were splitting a plate of spring rolls and crab rangoon. Eleanor had a fondness for appetizers, for small, snack-like things sweet or savory.
“Sweet and sour chicken?” said Brandon. “You ordered it last time we were here.”
“I haven’t felt like branching out,” Eleanor answered. “You didn’t order anything very original. Chinese dumplings and soy ginger – the only change you made was not ordering a side of cabbage.”
“Too many spring rolls,” he answered. He wiped his fingers on a napkin, shoving aside the small plate before him of bits of fried wonton wraps and pieces of shredded carrot and cabbage.
The waitress set a teapot and two china cups from her standing tray onto the table, then two plates of food. “Anything else, please?” she asked, in the thick accent of a recent Asian immigrant.
“No, not now, thank you,” said Eleanor. She unwrapped her chopsticks and gingerly pierced a bright orange piece of chicken. Brandon was studying his plate with a slight frown – that was the worst part of eating with Brandon, his tendency to over-examine everything before eating.
“Stop looking at it,” she said.
“I know,” he grumbled. “But it’s lukewarm –”
“We are the post-lunch crowd,” she answered. “What did you expect?”
“A better heat lamp,” he answered. He peeled his chopsticks apart and jabbed at the rice, testing it with a critical expression as he poked some of it into his mouth. His severe expression softened slightly.
“Not bad,” he said. “It would be better hot, of course. But not bad.”
It was like this upon every occasion. Eleanor pretended not to notice.
“I read your Friday piece on the new NFL rules,” she said.
“Don’t pretend you found it interesting,” Brandon warned her.
“Not ‘interesting’ in the sense that I was fascinated or awaiting conclusion with baited breath. But I thought that it was good. One of your best for the year, actually. An almost literary-quality analysis of the sport’s bureaucracy. You had me persuaded against it by the end.”
He didn’t bother to ask if she was pretending to understand it, although Brandon was not above such questions. He was aware that Eleanor grasped the basics of football and remembered the names of teams, their places in the league, the specifics of tournaments and player trades. It was due mostly to gradual years of reading his column and borrowing his books on occasion, since she had neither brother, nor, after the earliest years of Marianne’s childhood, a father to acclimate her to sports.
“Good. That was my point. And if I convinced you, who have a nature persuaded by fact and not feeling in most cases, then maybe I persuaded some of the knee-jerk, arbitrary decision-makers in our society whose sole criteria for an opinion is whatever they first heard.”
“Harsh,” commented Eleanor. “You have no pity on them. You should, you know. It isn’t easy to form opinions on your own. Still harder when they’re opinions unpopular with others around you.”
“I should,” said Brandon. “But I generally don’t have pity even for myself. If I’m hard on myself, then it seems reasonable that I can afford to be hard on others.” But he was softening slightly; Eleanor could tell by the corners of his mouth and the relaxed creases around his eyes.
“Don’t think me such a grump – a curmudgeon – that I’m all reason and grim prediction,” he said.
“Since when have I thought that of you?” asked Eleanor, who was somewhat surprised by this shift in the subject.
“I didn’t say that you did,” he answered. “Never mind – tell me about your column. I read Bitterman’s trumped-up piece by Kingsly on the subject. Kind words and very flattering. Most of it was even true.”
Eleanor laughed. “Then it really did meet with your approval,” she said, spearing a little more chicken on her plate with the chopsticks. A half-eaten spring roll tumbled to the side, a gentle slide into the broccoli.
“Yes, well ... you know my thoughts on extraneous news pieces. But I thought it was a fitting tribute to your work. You’ve worked hard, you’ve earned the recognition you received. Rightly so.”
Her smile of reply was faint. “Sometimes I think I ought to have done something else,” she said. “Like you said after the opera a month or so ago; there’s a lack of meaning in my work. Or, at least, a lack of forward momentum. Not that I want to fail and be fired, mind you.”
“You won’t be on Haldon Media’s chopping block,” answered Brandon, with a snort. “No, they’ll pick the bottom-dwellers first. The pieces that survive in frailty at best and won’t survive the transition into our brave new world at all.”
“I don’t listen to the rumors at work,” said Eleanor, stubbornly. “I’ve taken to deleting all of Jeanine’s forwards unopened – she’s really quite bad about circulating every dire prediction that comes her way.”
“I prefer it to be spread verbally myself,” said Brandon. A sardonic grin in response to Eleanor’s glare over the rim of her tea cup.
Brandon fell silent for a moment. He took a deep breath, then exhaled.
“What I said to you the other night at your party,” he said. “About having – hidden depths. I didn’t mean to imply that I was –” He paused. “Embarrassed by them in general. Or hide them for that reason.”
She could see he was embarrassed when he met her eyes. Why, she couldn’t fathom, unless it was over being thought vulnerable or a failure at something. Sympathy stirred in Eleanor, along with a sense of bitter disappointment for Marianne’s lack of judgment on this subject.
“I hope you haven’t been thinking about that since the party,” she said, gently. “It was all nonsense on Marianne’s part. She’s thoughtless sometimes; and she doesn’t see your better qualities the way your friends do. People who have known you as long as I have never think of you as cold or unfeeling.”
“I once imagined myself as the opposite of that picture,” he said, poking his chopsticks at a dumpling. “The sort who rescues a damsel in some form of distress, an unwed mother or …” At this moment, he remembered Marianne’s announcement, his eyes cutting apologetically towards Eleanor. “Not that I had such a fantasy regarding your sister...or that she needed rescuing. That wasn’t what I meant by it.”
Eleanor bit back her smile. “I know you didn’t,” she answered. “But I think Marianne’s in need of rescuing. From herself, not necessarily from Will or anyone else.” She lifted her cup of tea, moodily.
“Her news came by surprise, I take it?” said Brandon. “I’m assuming you didn’t know. You hadn’t said anything.”
“It was as much a surprise to me as to anyone else within earshot,” said Eleanor, with a smile of chagrin. “That’s Marianne all over again.”
“If I were Marianne’s – male relative,” Brandon hesitated for lack of the word he wanted. “Not your father, heaven forbid, but a brother of sorts. Then I would do something old-fashioned, I suppose. Thrash him in the name of chivalry, for instance. Give him a good lecture on gentlemanly behavior.”
Eleanor didn’t laugh, although her lips twitched slightly. “I hardly think that’s necessary,” she said. “It’s not as if he’s ruined Marianne’s reputation. Nor has he done anything wrong, you know, in the sense that she's as much a part of this as he is.”
“Still,” Brandon grunted. “He could behave more responsibly. That’s enough reason for anyone to feel concerned.” He lifted the tiny teacup before him, his thick fingers handling its smooth surface awkwardly. He placed it back down without drinking any.
Concern did not seem a word which quite expressed it to Eleanor’s thoughts. Perhaps it was something else he was meaning and didn’t find the right phrase for it.
“I’ve had several words with Marianne and now she thinks I dislike him,” said Eleanor. “I can’t, of course. Not now. Now he’s a part of her life in a more permanent sense. And there is something ... very likeable about him.” This, with a sigh, because it was true. She had been attracted to Will, not in a romantic sense, but in the way one is simply attracted to certain people because of their charm or personality.
Brandon’s chopsticks closed around a slippery dumpling, which escaped him until the second try. “Will Allen’s reputation wouldn’t be encouragement,” he said. “I was bothered when I met him at the party. That he was Marianne’s choice, I mean.”
Eleanor’s fingers ceased toying with one of the miniature paper fans of bright Oriental patterned paper in the centerpiece.
“You know him?” she said.
He grunted. “Know of him. The Allens in Pittsburgh society, that is. The son was thought of as a kind of eligible bachelor at Yale, ran around with an unsavory crowd there and lazed about when he was at home. The party sort – not the type with cocktails with olives and drawing room concerts.”
“There were other girls,” said Eleanor.
Brandon’s face grew slightly darker. “Well, we’ll leave those rumors where they are,” he said, brusquely.
She winced. “I hoped it wasn't so. He seemed comfortable with Marianne’s social crowd, so I thought maybe it was just a case of a wealthy boy fascinated with the other half of society." She paused. "But maybe he regrets his wild past. And Marianne certainly doesn’t care about those sorts of incidents.”
“I suspect the family’s disappointed in him,” said Brandon. “But then – enough of this. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You. How are you these days? Barring Marianne and her drama, you have a life. I’ve glimpsed your column the last week or so, of course –”
“A passing glance,” suggested Eleanor, archly.
“– but there are other things, I’m sure. What of your personal life? What of that – that incident of flirtation you spoke of a few weeks ago?”
How he remembered that, Eleanor had no idea. A blush, an uncomfortable one, rose with the memory of Edward. “There’s nothing there, I’m afraid,” she answered. “I’m beginning to think I willed an attraction from another into being. Perhaps it was all my imagination.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Brandon scoffed.
“I think you mean, ‘don’t be self-pitying,’” volunteered Eleanor.
“No, I meant what I said. Don’t rearrange my words. I may be awkward with women, but that doesn’t mean everything I say is an insult.” He lifted his cup of tea and took a sip, then lowered it as he made a face.
“This is terrible stuff. Do you drink this every time?”
“It’s good for you,” said Eleanor.
“It’s like drinking grass. Almost cold, no taste –”
“Hush,” said Eleanor, softly, as the waitress approached with a small tray of fortune cookies and the check, which she placed before them smilingly.
“Is this green tea?” Brandon demanded, holding up the teapot. She smiled and nodded.
“Green tea, yes. Very nice.”
“No, it’s not,” he said. “There’s something wrong with it. Look at it – it’s hardly brown, there’s nothing steeped in here – ” He lifted the lid of the pot, the waitress peering inside with concern.
“No, really,” said Eleanor to the waitress. “It’s fine.”
“We take it off check,” the waitress suggested.
“That’s not necessary,” began Brandon. “I only want you to know for the future.”
“We very sorry. We refund –”
“No, don’t do that. I only meant –”
“Yes, please,” said Eleanor, gently, to the waitress, giving Brandon a silencing glance. “That would be nice, thank you. And we apologize for the trouble we’ve caused you.” The waitress smiled and withdrew.
He put the lid on the pot. “I didn’t want to not pay for it,” he said. “Only to point out that there’s no green tea in their tea. What was wrong with that? I wasn’t exactly an ogre towards her...” He gazed helplessly, half-scowling, as Eleanor pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“Marianne isn’t all wrong about me either, you know,” he said. With no further explanation for that statement, he pulled his wallet from inside his coat and placed several bills beneath the half-finished plate of crab wontons.
“A bigger tip will fix it,” he mumbled.
*****
Dear Sensitive,
Yes, there is such a thing as being too sensitive. When life or people become difficult, it can tempt you into retreating as a victim or into blaming others for your own mistakes or problems.
While sensitivity is sometimes perceived as a weakness, our society has come to think of it more and more as a virtue. It proves you care, that you feel pain, sympathy, or empathy for others.
The question is now, is your sensitivity the type that is displayed openly for all the world or is it a hidden or controlled quality of your character? Which one is better? That’s a question I can’t answer for you, except to advise you to ask yourself the following. Which one do you think is better for yourself and which is better for those around you? The answer may be your deciding factor in whether there are more benefits to being completely open about your emotions – or to partially mastering them for the sake of someone else. Think about which one means more to you before you choose.
Eleanor ceased typing. The answer seemed incomplete, but she could think of nothing else to say. It was an ambiguous task, telling others what to feel about something. This work was so – so subjective, really. Who was she to imply that sensitivity was self-destructive? Or that a stalwart front was a noble gesture?
It was the difference between characters. People like Brandon, whose emotions escaped through chinks and cracks like water seeping through armor or stone. People like Marianne, whose face never concealed what she was feeling, whose every movement was determined by the intensity of her feelings.
They were the extremes, of a sort. The rest fell in between, people like herself, or perhaps Will, or even Lucy.
What about Edward? What kind of person was he? Emotional or concealing? Did it matter to her which one? Or rather, would it have mattered – since he had chosen to disappear from her life, she supposed that such thoughts were now academic.
On the desk before her, a slip of paper which had fluttered from the contents of her purse when she removed her flash drive. The fortune from her cookie at the restaurant on Saturday, its tiny red letters gazing skywards. Your future is too big for your grasp; hold out both hands to receive it.
She found herself wondering what that was truly supposed to mean, even as she propped it against her pencil holder.